I took my part completed Steam Traction World Foden to the Bedfordshire Steam rally in September as an entered static exbibit. However I was fortunate enough to get a tow into the main ring from a Rex Foden owned by Graham Beck. Although it towed reasonally well I did notice that the front wheel mudguards tended to touch the front tyres which caused them to bend upwards.

I have now turned the front mounting brackets upside and fixed them to the chassis with a clearance of about 3mm between the underside of the top of the rail. This gap eliminates the need to fit the bracket to the inside curve at the back and also in my case insert a lamp bracket made of 25mm x 3mm steel between the bracket and the chassis. The two brackets are bolted to chassis at the outer edge of the chassis and also the two brackets are bolted together close to where the lamp bracket bends upwards.

The end result is an extra +25mm between the tyre and the mudguard and greatly improved stiffness of the mudguard. Now, except on very rough ground and possibly full lock the tyre will not make contact with the mudguard

Hi, Before you altered yours did you have a look at the axle and its relationship with the spring, I also have seen this engine it was made by Terrance Aston in Northern Ireland and it needed the front springs rolling more. This would have given more than adequate clearance for the wheels. Builders should be aware of the weight they build extra into there engines regarding different types of running gear.Happy building. Engineer.

When I first fitted my mudguards I found they were a bit close to the tyres. I improved the clearance by rebending them to the profile given in the Rex drawings. The significant difference is that the radius above the tyre is now 10". With just this rebending and without altering the mounting bracket I now have sufficient clearance to allow a 3" bum to be mounted without the tyre hitting the mudguard. Scaling this to fullsize this would represent a 9" rock so I guess this is about as good as the design would have been originally. Perhaps our rally fields have too many over scale rocks.

The Rex drawings show the radius above the tyre to be 10" and not the tighter radius supplied by ModelWorks

Testing the clearance by placing the front wheel on a 3" block to simulated a large bump

As someone who's other hobby is off-roading I think that quite a bit of clearance will be needed between the front wheels and the mudguard unless bumpstops are fitted to limit the upward travel of the axle. It's not the height of one bump that is the issue rather it's axle twisting ground which one finds quite a lot of at rally fields which would cause the two axles to cross up. Bump stops would solve the problem which is what I've fitted to the Burrell Traction Wagon as I found the tyres rubbing the underneath of the trailer when its full of kids. They also limit the amount of stress inflicted on the leaf springs.

I problem I found with the front mudguards was not so much when the wheels are pointing straight ahead but when you apply anything other than a small amount of steering lock the tyres tending to rub the underside of the mudguards particularly on uneven ground. Now that I have raised the mudguards about an inch the problem has been resolved.Julia said shee reformed the shape of hers but as I have mine fulled painted I was not prepared to do that.

PualI am not finished! I have now discovered that the problem gets worse as lock is put on (as you say). I plan to do some research and make further adjustments to the profile. I would also like to beef up the supports as mine are already drooping.Julia